The One Read online

  I‘d been wrong. Clearly, I could make it more awkward.

  “Ah, I see. I’m cool with that.” He nodded. “But let’s not make any decisions yet. The night is young.”

  “Ah, yeah. It is.” Damn it. “So how about we start with a type of interview? So I can get to know you?”

  “I’m all yours.” He winked again.

  Let’s stop with the winking. With a deep breath, I dove in.

  And two hours later, I wished I had never met Roxi for coffee.

  In fact, I was contemplating ruing the day we met in kindergarten.

  According to Jackson, he wasn’t just a second string fullback for the Seahawks. He was an ex-marine who was discharged before he saw action and then took out his aggression on the football field.

  His words.

  Not mine.

  And Google is not a liar’s friend.

  Because after I left the restaurant, I Googled his name, I was led to his Facebook page, where in his About Me profile, his story was completely different.

  Liar, liar pants on fire.

  I shook my head at the keyboard as I read.

  Because Jackson Meyer moved to Seattle last year from Miami, was not on the Seahawk’s roster, and didn’t have any military experience.

  But he did join PETA a few years back — exactly when he said he was a Marine.

  I blinked at the screen.

  Yeah, okay Roxi, how do you want me to spin this one?

  I thought about sending her a text, but honestly, what could she do?

  Nothing.

  So, I pulled out my laptop and lied.

  Through my clenched teeth.

  And dreamed about what it would have been like to date a real football star with some serious aggression issues tempered by some fine military training.

  That… I could work with.

  So, with a literary finesse I didn’t know I had, I sent off the first e-mail, notifying Roxi that a second “date” with Jackson wasn’t necessary.

  THE SUNSHINE POURED through the Pike Place Market coffee shop as I wrapped my hands around a warm mug of coffee, totally distracted by the moss green eyes of Logan, the local guitar legend. He was a total hipster with his long, perfectly trimmed beard and red flannel shirt. Black, thick rimmed glasses completed the look, magnifying the enticing hue of his eyes.

  “You want to know a secret?” he asked over his steaming green tea, and I actually relaxed.

  There was no creep factor.

  And he hadn’t winked once.

  Score!

  And I may or may not have stalked him on Facebook before the date.

  Silence is golden.

  “Oh? I love secrets,” I flirted. I mean, why not? Logan was actually someone I was excited to meet. He was a musician who played in local coffee houses. He was also a small business owner with a rural farm. I mean the guy had business smarts, could sing, and loved animals.

  This… this I could work with.

  “Do you like Adele?” he asked, taking a sip of his tea.

  “Of course.” I shrugged, curious as to where he was leading.

  “Good. I have to play this next set and I’ll be back… with my secret.” He set his tea down and walked over to the small stage made from repurposed pallets. After slinging his guitar over his shoulder, he stood in front of the mic and started playing Adele’s ‘Hello’.

  His voice was smooth yet raspy at all the right places. As his body swayed to the music, I felt myself drawn in.

  He finished and walked back to the table, offering me his hand. “I’m finished for today, let’s go. I want to show you something.” He carried his guitar case in one hand and waited for me as I paid the bill.

  We walked through the Pike Place Market and then turned up a side street for a few blocks. “You want to know the secret now?” He gave me a flirtatious grin.

  “Sure.”

  “I know Adele.” He hitched a shoulder.

  “Say what?” I paused walking and regarded him.

  “I know her. You know the song, ’Someone Like You’? It’s written about me.” He winked.

  Damn winking!

  “You’re kidding?” I asked, hopeful.

  “Ha, no. It’s the honest truth. She never did get over me.” He shook his head and walked on toward an old apartment building.

  I watched him, looking for a sign that he was kidding and found none.

  Holy shit! Did he actually believe that?

  Then part of me wondered, what if he’s right?

  But—

  “Will you come up? I want you to see my cocks.”

  I tripped over my own feet as I replayed what he said.

  Cocks? Plural?

  “If you’re good I’ll even let you pet them.” He gave me a wicked grin.

  “Uh…” I took a slow step back.

  “I’m joking with you. I’m talking about my roosters. Don’t worry.” He shook his head and laughed at his own joke.

  Ha ha. I held back a glare and debated whether to actually follow him into the building or not.

  “I’m sorry, it was in poor taste, I know. It’s just fun to tease, and your reaction was fantastic. Forgive me?” he asked, his tone sincere.

  I debated for a moment then smiled. “Okay.”

  “The elevator doesn’t work, so this is my daily cardio. Keeps me ripped.” He gave me a grin as he started up the stairs.

  “Yay, cardio.” I did a little fist pump. “Which floor are you on?”

  “The top… that’s where my cocks are.”

  I cursed my three-inch heels. “When you say top…?” I asked, trying to sound like I wasn’t out of breath already.

  “The roof. It’s twenty flights.” He didn’t even sound winded! He actually started taking the stairs two at a time.

  Yeah, I was so not working out for the next week.

  Hell, I probably wasn’t going to be able to walk for the next week! I could already feel blisters forming around the edges of my heels.

  I should have said no.

  To Roxi.

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  “Here it is!” He opened the roof access, and I wanted to cry — both from the pain and also just the thought that I was done. The Seattle sky had grown grey and small raindrops fell from the sky. The chickens roamed freely within a closed off area, pacing the perimeter as we approached, as if excited.

  “They are mostly Rhode Island Reds, good layers and friendly.” He sat his guitar case down, and opened the gate. The chicken’s flocked around him, all vying for attention as he picked one up.

  I tried not to gag as he cradled it in his arms and kissed its beak.

  There was a fine line between loving animals and salmonella.

  “You want to hold her, maybe give her a kiss?” he asked, his eyes bright like a little puppy.

  No. “Sure,” I answered, how hard could it be?

  He left the cage and held out the hen to me, and I swear I could see her little bird eyes panic.

  Chickens fly.

  I didn’t know this.

  And if you don’t hold them right…

  Let’s just say that Red made it down the twenty flights of stairs faster than I ever could… since she took the shortcut.

  I wasn’t going to be seeing Logan again… his last words to me were calling me a murderer.

  That night as I wrote up the blog post, I decided to leave out the kissing chickens, the last flight of Red the hen, and the plural cocks.

  Basically, I was becoming a professional liar.

  And the world was eating it up.

  While I slowly lost every fantasy about men I had ever imagined.

  But as bad as Jackson and Adele’s lost lover were, they seemed tame compared to my next date.

  Kurt.

  “He’s an enigma. Totally biker hot and bad ass.” Roxi had described him as everything bad boy and sexy.

  Kurt was also recently out of prison.

  For good behavior.


  She said it added to his sex appeal.

  I packed my mace and Taser.

  Thankfully, we were meeting at the EMP in Seattle, vastly populated and video monitored. If I disappeared, at least they would know who did it.

  My foot bounced nervously as I waited by the fountain in front of the abstract building, and then, as if people could sense the danger, they parted and a man walked through. Black leather squeaked and chains jingled with each step. His hair was tied back in a skullcap, and he wore dark glasses. His sleeveless shirt showed off full sleeve tattoos with various skulls and crosses.

  “You must be Meredith.” He nodded toward me as he closed the distance.

  “Yeah. That’s me.” I swallowed. Dear Lord, this was how I died.

  “We gotta get out of this sunlight. Hurts my eyes.” He started toward the Experience Music Project and walked in.

  I followed him, trying to think of something to start a conversation. “Have you ever been here before?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. I like Hendricks, so…” He shrugged and took off his glasses. His eyes were a dark espresso brown, warm in contrast to his gruff demeanor.

  “Seattle legend.” I walked with him under the hundreds of guitars suspended from the ceiling.

  “Yeah. He had some pretty sweet conspiracy theories.” He nodded to a large picture of the artist.

  “Oh?” Would it be rude to change the subject?

  “Yeah. He hated the daytime too.”

  I don’t want to know. “What was your favorite song?” I steered the topic of conversation a different direction.

  “American Woman.” He glanced to me and nodded. “Classic.”

  “Good song.” And the conversation lulled.

  “Too bad you didn’t want to go out at night.” He commented as we wound around the various exhibits.

  Like hell was I going out with him at night. I had some sense of self-preservation.

  “Why?” I asked, digging and desperate for some sort of twist I could put in the blog post. So far, I had nothing but biker — and I hadn’t seen his bike — and tattoos.

  A girl needed more to work with. I could only lie so much.

  “Vampires hate the day.” He traced the outline of a guitar with his finger and walked on.

  I opened my mouth and then shut it. No. I don’t want to know. And there is no way I’m putting a Twilight spin on this thing.

  “The ladies usually love it. That and my ex-CIA training.” He turned and gave me a wide grin.

  And how does CIA training get you incarcerated?

  Seriously, it was like these guys had no idea I did my research.

  I glanced at my watch. Yeah. I was done. So very, very done.

  With this whole idea.

  So with a fake phone call — why not? I was already making a career out of lying — I ditched Kurt and his bondage teasers.

  I kid you not the guy actually wanted to show me his red room.

  Sorry, it might be Seattle but I was not Anastasia, and he was no hot billionaire with a sordid past.

  Okay, so maybe he had a sordid past but… yeah.

  I was gone.

  And I vowed that as soon as the post was written I was calling Roxi.

  This ended now.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “SO WE HIT a bit of a snag…” Roxi’s voice sounded through my car’s Bluetooth as I drove home.

  “What kind of snag?”

  “The stepbrother guy I had picked out fell through. I have a back up…”

  “Yay.” I spoke with as much sarcasm as I could possible use. “A backup… seriously I’m so done with these guys!” I heaved an exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes, even knowing she couldn’t see me.

  “You have two types left. And I have two set up back-to-back, but you’ll need to travel. Is your passport valid?” She completely ignored my sarcasm.

  “Wait. How did we get to the passport question? Where are you planning on sending me?” I narrowed my eyes at the road, waiting.

  “You’ll love it! You’ve always wanted to go there and now you have the perfect excuse! And it will all be a tax write off as well as expensed so you’re golden!”

  “You have way too much enthusiasm for me to believe you right now.”

  “It’s Scotland, Mere. Scotland.”

  “No. Freaking. Way,” I whispered. Number one on my bucket list… it was a carrot she knew I couldn’t resist.

  “Wait… who is in Scotland?”

  “The Stepbrother guy and the Millionaire.”

  “Seriously, you couldn’t find either of those in America?” I spoke with thick sarcasm. “Not that I’m opposed to Scotland—”

  “I’m not just going to set you up with anyone. I need credentials and—”

  “And the backup guy is the one with credentials? Wait… I thought we were going for a billionaire?”

  “Yeah… that changed too. I only had so many people volunteering—”

  “And the last guy had volunteered? Yeah… not buying it.”

  “He was… unique.”

  “He was a masochist that makes me want to take a shower after thinking of his name,” I shrieked, shivering.

  “He wasn’t that bad.”

  “Says the spider to the fly,” I yelled inside the car, knowing my tone would carry through my Bluetooth.

  “Are you going to go to Scotland or not.” She sighed heavily into the phone and I winced at the sound.

  I paused, narrowing my eyes at the road. “Do I get first class?”

  “No.”

  “Do I get a nice hotel?” I twisted my lips.

  “Depends on how fast you say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re booked at Hotel Indigo in Edinburgh. You fly out in three days, and I’ll have your first guy pick you up from the airport.” There was a victorious tone to her words that made me growl.

  But I was getting Scotland out of the deal. And honestly, how much worse could the guys get?

  I took a deep breath. “Who is this first guy… and why are you having him pick me up?”

  “You’ll see. Don’t worry, he knows the city well. You’ll be in good hands.”

  “So he’s my Allstate agent?” I responded cynically.

  “Ha, ha, funny. No. But you’ll be fine. I gotta go. Keep up with the writing, it’s perfect, funny. I love it all, and the blog is booming from it. So keep it up! Bye!”

  “Bye.” I sighed the word, arching a brow in suspicion.

  At least I got something pretty awesome out of the deal.

  Scotland.

  Yeah, I could deal with a lot if I got to go there.

  THE FLIGHT WAS ten hours of red-eye nightmare. It was impossible to sleep with the amount of turbulence we experienced, and I wasn’t exactly a calm flyer anyway, so I basically white knuckled it for the entire time to Edinburgh International Airport. Then, as I was pulling out my carry-on, a wheel snapped off and smacked a kid on the head. And yes, I totally pretended it was the guy in front of me. Glaring at him, I shook my head and passed through the aisle as the mother of the child subjected him to a hard stare.

  I never said I was mature.

  The line for customs was blessedly short, which was good since my bladder was growing more impatient by the moment.

  With the wheel broken off, my carry-on dragged along the floor, one pathetic wheel spinning freely while the other two rocked back and forth like a shopping cart from hell. As I passed a restroom I debated on whether or not to go in. Honestly, I didn’t want to see my own reflection. It would be rough… in the kindest sense of the word. Yet my cursed pride wouldn’t let me meet this mystery bachelor number four without at least trying to wipe the smeared mascara from under my eyes.

  I had standards.

  Had being the operative word. The last ten hours had made me almost abandon them all.

  Grumbling, I hauled my wobbling suitcase to the restroom. I passed a few mirrors and glanced up.

  It was bad.
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br />   Forget the mascara smears; it was like any makeup I had worn had melted off my face and dripped down two inches from where it had started. After taking care of the bladder situation, I found a diaper changing station and set my waddling carry-on on top of it. I laid it on its side, unzipped it, and retrieved my makeup bag. Time to go to work.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was at least recognizable to myself. Tucking everything away, I straightened my shoulders and walked… directly to a coffee shop.

  “Hi. Can I have black coffee with a splash of cream?” I ordered and pulled out my card.

  “Course.” The Scottish brogue teased my ears, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  I was in Scotland!

  “But I have no cream. Will milk do?”

  “No cream?” I asked, puzzled. Who didn’t have cream for their coffee? At a coffee shop no less!

  “’Fraid not. Skim or part skim? Whole milk perhaps?” she asked politely.

  “Whole.” I blinked, then handed her my company card.

  “I’m afraid I canno’ accept that.” She handed the plastic card back to me.

  “Pardon?” I glanced at the Visa Logo. Apparently they were not everywhere you wanted to be.

  “No chip.” She shrugged. “Do you have a chip and pin card?”

  “Uh… I have cash? But I haven’t exchanged it yet.” I was starting to sweat. The line behind me was growing and I really wanted that blasted coffee!

  “I can do that.” She smiled, but it was less friendly.

  I handed her a twenty in American dollars and watched in fascination as she counted back the change in pounds.

  Five minutes later I was sipping on my coffee with milk — not cream — and heading to the luggage carousel. After riding an escalator up, I waited by the carousel and sipped my coffee. Soon I was pulling off my large black suitcase with the turtle strap. I rolled it to the side, and went to grab my carry-on that I’d left by the carousel.

  Heaven forbid I set my coffee down.

  After retrieving the carry-on, I half dragged it toward my other suitcase.

  Just as a lady stopped beside it, pulled up the handle… and walked away with it.

  “Wait!” I called, now fully dragging my carry on behind me as I rushed after the silver-haired woman. ”That’s mine!” I shouted, she turned, frowned at me, and gave me the finger.